__________________The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.When you take things for granted, the things you are granted, get taken. Even a mosquito doesn't get a pat on the back until it starts to work.Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.[BES 5.0.3 / GroupWise 2012 HP2]

My phone has been running like crap lately, so I am thinking about doing a hard reset/reload.

I've tried using the backup tool in the past but it seems like it always fails at some point, so I don't want to trust it and want to do a fresh reload.

What are things I should remember to save???
So far I can think of:
-Contacts - Setting up an outlook profile and am going to save there, and might use the google sync tool too.
-Saved messages - Forward them to my email and store them
-Pictures, but most are on my flash memory card
-Settings-Write down whatever settings I want to restore
-Theme-Reload the theme I use
-Make a list of programs I want to reload

Have you tried a battery pull recently? That might fix what is ailing the device. It might not need a reload at all.

What other symptoms does it have? Do you have a lot of 3rd party apps, themes, ringtones, etc? Do you have data intensive apps running in the background, i.e. maps, Facebook, etc.? How much free memory do you have?

If you reload the OS, everything is wiped and the OS is replaced. You can then go in and selectively reload from the backup or load individually using DM or OTA.